"Vacation" and "holiday" are words with similar meanings. They both describe days when you don't go to work or school. There are differences between them, but they can be a little difficult to discover on your own. 这两个词有很相似的意思。他们都是用来表示那些你不上班或是不上学的日子。但是它们之间还是有区别。

Holidays are for everyone 假期是每个人都有的

One big difference between "vacation" and "holiday" is that we use the word 'holiday' to talk about days that are celebrated by a lot of people. They include religious holidays: 当中一个最大的区别是当我们用holiday的时候，我们在谈论一些很多人都庆祝的节日。也包括一些宗教的节日。比如说：

• Christmas 圣诞节
• Rosh Hashanah 
• Ramadan

They also include national holidays. An example of a national holiday for the United States is Independence Day. 它们也包括一些国家的节日。一个美国国家的节日的例子：美国国庆节。

If everyone that you work with is out of work on the same day, it's not a "vacation".如果每个人都在这一天不工作，这不是一个vacation。

Vacations often involve travel Vacation 总是表示旅游

If you tell someone about your "vacation" the conversation might go like this:如果有人跟你提起“vacation”以一定是这样的情形：

You: I took a vacation last week. 你：我上礼拜度假了。

Them: Where did you go? 他们：你去了哪？

That's because vacations often involve traveling somewhere. 因为vacation 总是包含去别的地方旅游的部分。

A new word that's become a bit popular in the last 10 years is "staycation". A "staycation" is a holiday that you spend at home.最近十年有一个新的流行词汇，就是“staycation"。这个词表示你在家里度过了你的假日。

British and other English varieties 英式英语或是其他地区的英语

The rules above are for American English. British English uses "holiday" in both cases: 上面提到的约定俗成都是建立在美式英语的基础上。英式英语把”holiday“表示全部两种的情况。：

Monday is a holiday. 周一是一个假日。

I'm going on holiday next week. 我下周要去度假。

What about other days? 这些日子怎么表示呢？

There are some days when you don't work that are neither "holidays" nor "vacations". For example, if you stay home one day just to relax, what do you call it? It's not a general "holiday" but you're not going anywhere so it's not a "vacation" either. You can call such a situation a "day off": 有一些日子你不必工作但它们既不是”holiday“也不是”vacation“。比如说，如果你在家放松了一天，你怎么称呼它？ 这不是通常意义上的”holiday“，你也没有去别的什么地方，所以也不是vacation。你可以称呼这样的一个情形为”day off”: 

I'm going to take a day off this week. 我这周要休息一天。

A lot of people don't work on weekends (Saturday and Sunday). To talk about those days, just call them "the weekend": 大多数人在周末（周六和周日）不工作。 表示这些日子，叫“周末”就 可以了。

I can't wait for the weekend! 我等不及要过周末了！

But if you have a job that requires you to work on weekends, you still have days each week when you don't work. Call those your "days off": 但是，如果你的工作要求你在周哦莫工作，但你还是有一周中的其他几天不工作，叫这些日子“day off"。

What are you doing on your day off? 你休息的时候做什么？

If you're in school, you also have weeks or months when there are no classes. Those are called "breaks": 如果你在上学，你也有几周或是几个月没有课。这些叫做”breaks“。

What did you do over summer break? 你暑假的时候干啥了？